The Murdoch Divorce: A Few Details

If you think the biggest story in media land today was Hillary Clinton’s comeback speech or the continuing fallout from the N.S.A. leaks scandal, you are living on Planet Zog. From New York to Los Angeles to Washington to London, virtually the only topic of conversation was the news that Rupert Murdoch is divorcing his third wife, Wendi Deng Murdoch.

As a former employee of News Corp.’s newspapers—earlier in my career, I spent seven years at the Sunday Times of London and two years at the New York Post—and as a longtime observer of the Murdoch empire, I’m as fascinated as anyone. But getting a read on what’s really going on, and what lies behind the divorce filing, is tough. After making a few calls and sending out a few e-mails, here is what I know.

Murdoch, who is eighty-two, filed divorce papers this morning in New York State Supreme Court saying that his relationship with Wendi, who is forty-four, had “broken down irretrievably,” which is standard legal boilerplate. The lawyer handling the case for him is Ira E. Garr, a well-known member of the divorce bar, who has previously worked for a number of high-profile clients, including Ivana Trump and Kimba Wood (a.k.a. “The Love Judge”).

The divorce doesn’t have any immediate ramifications for the future of News Corp., which is currently splitting itself into two companies: a print division that will retain the name, and a film-and-television division to be called 21st Century Fox. The two children from the Rupert-Wendi marriage—Grace and Chloe—are stockholders in News Corp. through a trust, but their stock is non-voting.

A person close to Murdoch and News Corp. confirmed these details to me. Almost everything else is speculation, except this: the couple had a pre-nuptial agreement, which they signed before they got married in 1999. Presumably, this contract will have placed a limit on the money and assets that Wendi could expect to receive in a divorce settlement. Of course, her lawyer—so far unnamed—could seek to void this contract, but that’s never an easy task. To succeed, Wendi would have to show that it contained a sunset agreement, or that, in signing it, she was misled or kept ignorant of its real meaning.

I am told that the couple were still living together until Rupert informed Wendi of his intention to seek a divorce. However, cohabiting doesn’t necessarily mean the same things to the Murdochs that it does to most couples. They have homes in New York, Los Angeles, Northern California, Long Island, London, Beijing, and Melbourne, and I may have missed one or two. Murdoch also owns at least one large yacht, and, given his punishing travel schedule, he spends a lot of time on his corporate jet, a converted Boeing 737.

At least for the moment, neither party is giving interviews or making any public comment. Murdoch, who values his privacy and that of his children, will surely try hard to reach a private settlement with his wife, who, as she demonstrated in tackling a pie-thrower who attacked him at a public hearing in London about the phone-hacking scandal, is a pretty formidable woman. The fact that nobody I talked to suggested this was an amicable parting of ways may be significant, or it may not.

As a newsman and avid purveyor of media gossip himself, Murdoch will surely understand the intense interest in what happens next.